‘We have to look after each other’: Jennifer Saunders on why we all need to return to the stage
Not even Noel Coward’s eccentric clairvoyant Madame Arcati could have predicted theatres would be left dark for 18 months by the pandemic – but as Jennifer Saunders returns to the stage in Blithe Spirit, she says her prediction has to be that we can get the show back on the road.
Saunders told Sky News that as far as she’s concerned, the show must go on, and it now comes down to personal choice.
“It’s more dangerous for those people that aren’t vaccinated,” she said. “If someone’s not vaccinated, that’s their decision – I’m double vaccinated, I wear a mask and I wash my hands as often as possible and I get tested regularly, as I imagine a lot of people do. Most people do. So the risk is on the unvaccinated, not us, really.”
Saunders says the role of Madame Arcati is a ‘joy’ to play. Pic: Nobby Clark
After productions such as this latest take on Coward’s play were forced to close in March 2020, theatre land has had its fair share of false restarts, with shows such as Six and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new Cinderella opening only to shut down again due to COVID-19 and the so called “pingdemic” taking out casts.
But like many of her peers, Saunders – much loved for Absolutely Fabulous and French and Saunders, for which she won a BAFTA fellowship in 2009 – says reviving the theatre industry should be the focus, even though you can’t eliminate risk entirely.
“We have to look at each other and when you project, you do… you know, air and spittle comes out and all the rest of it,” she said. “But as a cast, we are a bubble and we’re constantly tested, so it does feel very safe and enjoyable.”
Her optimism for the future of the industry is encouraged by a world readjusting.
“I think it will come back – people are going to tennis matches and football matches and everything else and going out into clubs and to restaurants and the theatre is no different to that. People just need to get back into the habit.”
Having eyed up this role since she saw Margaret Rutherford in the film adaptation of Blithe Spirit, Saunders says despite being written in 1941, the play – about a couple haunted by his ex-wife – endures because of the way it is written.
“Coward’s genius at writing dialogue – I mean, it just fizzes – and a married couple arguing is as relevant now as it ever was, and it’s the same arguments,” she said. “And he’s so witty and he’s so sharp, and that’s why it’s also a joy to play because there really isn’t a duff line.”
Saunders says Absolutely Fabulous, which also starred Joanna Lumley, would not be made today as comedy has moved on ‘as the modern world should’
But while Coward’s material remains relevant, Saunders recently hit headlines for saying her own show Absolutely Fabulous would not be made now.
The star accepts that when she burst on to the scene, her generation clashed with the old.
“I said it wouldn’t probably be made now because sensibilities are different, which they are, and quite rightly so,” she said. “Every generation brings with it its own view of the world and its own sensibilities and certain sensitivities – as we did when we started as alternative comedians and we were seen as being against the old comedy.
“But to be honest, it just moves along and it moves along as the modern world should, and quite rightly so. We all adapt and we all move forward, you adapt and you can still be funny; it’s a modern way of thinking, a different world, different sensibilities, we’re probably kinder, you know.”
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Now she’s back on stage, Saunders says she just hopes everyone else comes back, too.
“I just hope people come to the theatre and I hope when they come that they keep themselves safe and they keep other people safe, you know, and the theatres are doing everything possible to facilitate that.
“It’s not just in the theatre, which was hit incredibly badly, but all the businesses around – all the cafes and the restaurants and everything that facilitates theatre has been hit so badly. So the sooner we can get everything up and up and running safely, the better for everyone in the West End and around the country.”
Blithe Spirit is on at London’s Harold Pinter theatre until 6 November
Hilary Swank says playing roles based on real stories have made her a “better person”.
The 49-year-old has portrayed a real-life single mother, a lawyer and a high-school dropout – and won her first Academy Award in 2000 for Boys Don’t Cry, a story based on the life of Brandon Teena, a trans man who was murdered in 1993.
She tells Sky News: “Each character that I’ve ever played is in my heart, and I am so grateful for that because it just made me, I think, a better person and certainly helped me challenge myself as an artist”.
Hilary Swank as Sharon in Ordinary Angels. Pic: Sony Pictures/Allen Fraser
Swank says she never thought her acting choices would have such an impact on others and finds it “so beautiful to have those conversations” with people who relate to the roles she has played.
“[My filmography] touches not only different, genders, which is so unique, but different races and, and different classes of people and that is so beautiful because I then get to connect with people who have gone through something similar.
“Whether it’s people with addiction, people who are having a sexual identity crisis, people who are clear on their sexuality but had struggled in the past, people who were not seen in high school and dropped out because they didn’t matter and then that went on to graduating high school and college because they saw a movie that I was in”.
Her latest film, Ordinary Angels, is also non-fiction and she plays a woman who goes out of her way to help strangers at their time of need.
It’s based on the true story of a recently widowed father of two daughters, one of whom is in need of an organ transplant.
(R-L) Skywalker Hughes and Alan Ritchson in Ordinary Angels. Pic: Sony Pictures/Allen Fraser
Losing her father
The story has a real connection with Swank, whose father was an organ transplant recipient before his death in 2021.
In 2014, the two-time Oscar winner took a three-year break from acting to be the sole caretaker of her father and says it allowed them to grow closer “deepening our relationship and savouring every moment we had together”.
She was offered the role in Ordinary Angels just months after his death in 2021.
“When people are losing their lives it’s hard and it’s a reminder of the lives that are lost in our own lives as we play them”.
Swank describes playing real people as “an honour,” explaining: “It allows us, as actors and storytellers, to break the blinders of how we walk in the world and see the world and it reminds us that people are going through things that we have no idea about. So, to be a little kinder walk, tread a little gentler, give people more grace.”
She adds: “Each character that I’ve ever played is in my heart, and I am so grateful for that because it just made me, I think, a better person. And, certainly helped me challenge me as an artist”.
(R-L) Tamala Jones and Swank in Ordinary Angels. Pic: Sony Pictures/Allen Fraser
The real ‘snow baby’
Ordinary Angels centres on a struggling hairdresser Sharon who finds a new sense of purpose after reading about a tragic story in a Kentucky newspaper.
Ed, played by Reacher’s Alan Ritchson, is a recently widowed father of two daughters – one of whom is waiting for an organ transplant.
The film is based on real events that occurred in Kentucky in the early 1990s that saw a local hairdresser step in and launch fundraisers to help the family with their medical debt and organise the child’s journey via private plane whenever a donated liver became available.
Locally named the “snow baby”, Michelle Schmitt and her father were helped by a stranger, Sharon Stevens and their community, to get from Louisville to Nebraska for an organ transplant during a historic snowstorm.
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The tagline of Ordinary Angels is simple – “Find your purpose. Make a difference”.
Swank agrees and says it’s important to remember that we are not always aware of what others are going through.
“We have a choice in how we want to step into our lives every single day. That means helping others and helping ourselves to be a better person.”
Ordinary Angels is in UK cinemas now.
Tupac Shakur’s estate has threatened to sue Drake and ordered him to delete a track featuring an AI-generated copy of the late rapper’s voice.
Drake released the song Taylor Made Freestyle – a diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar – on his Instagram page on Friday, which features verses created by AI software mimicking both Shakur and Snoop Dogg.
In a cease-and-desist letter seen by Sky News’ US partner NBC News, Howard King, an attorney who represents Shakur’s estate, requested that Drake remove the track from all platforms where it is publicly available.
The letter sent on Wednesday states the Canadian rapper has until midday on Thursday to confirm he will remove it or the estate will “pursue all of its legal remedies” against him.
“Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights, it is also a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time,” Mr King wrote.
“The estate would never have given its approval for this use.”
The letter also outlines the estate’s “dismay” regarding the topic of the track, saying Lamar is “a good friend to the estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately” and that this “compounds the insult”.
In the track, the AI-generated voice of Shakur urges Lamar to respond to Drake’s previous diss track about him released several days prior, saying lines like: “Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast saviour / You seem a little nervous about all the publicity / You asked for the smoke, now it seem you too busy for the smoke.”
Tupac was killed in 1996. Pic: Walik Goshorn/MediaPunch/IPx/AP
The letter claims the track and its popularity have created the “false impression that the estate and Tupac promote or endorse the lyrics for the sound-alike”.
Shakur’s estate is also seeking damages including all profits from the record, which has so far only been posted on Drake’s Instagram page, as well as additional damages for substantial economic and reputational harm caused.
Read more:
Musicians react to AI songs flooding the internet
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The letter claimed Drake’s non-consensual use of Shakur’s likeness violates Shakur’s right to publicity, an intellectual property right protecting against the misappropriation of somebody’s name or image.
Sky News has contacted representatives of Drake for comment.
The AI-generated voice of prominent rapper Snoop Dogg was also used on the track.
Snoop Dogg posted a video on his Instagram story shortly after the diss track was posted, where he said: “They did what? When? How… What’s going on… I’m going back to bed.”
The use of AI in the music industry has been the subject of heavy debate since last year, when Drake’s own voice was cloned alongside The Weeknd by the artist known as Ghostwriter.
The track was taken down from all platforms shorty after it was released in April.
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